Unconventional family: Kelly Hicks with her son Tyler and Ben, who left his girlfriend to be with Kelly. (Image: Daily Mirror)

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Eight times she watched as the pregnancy test turned blue in her shaking hand. Only then would Kelly Hicks believe the miracle. Single with two failed marriages behind her and diagnosed with fertility problems, she had given up on ever cradling her own newborn baby in her arms.

Now she was finally pregnant. But instead of pure joy, she felt despair. Because the father of a child was a man she didn’t love, a secret casual fling.

Worse still, Ben Piper lived with his partner of 13 years Tracy Wild and their two children. Kelly knew that keeping her baby, the one thing she wanted more than anything else, would mean tearing their lives apart.

“I knew if I became a mum I would destroy a whole family’s future,” says Kelly. “I cared for Ben, but we weren’t in love. What basis was that to wreck the 13 years they had built together? Ben and I shouldn’t have done what we did, but no one was ever meant to know or get hurt.”

Kelly believed this was her only chance to have a child of her own and today she is a proud mother to two-year-old Tyler.

But the tale does not end there. The revelation did indeed rip Ben’s family apart – then he and Kelly unexpectedly found they were falling in love.

They now live together and are even planning to marry. But although Kelly, 32, is happier than she’s ever been, she admits her joy has been built on Tracy and her children’s misery.

“I never asked for anything from Ben but I can’t help thinking this was meant to be. I am truly sorry for the hurt I have caused – I have apologised to Tracy and the children,” she says.

“I’ll always regret hurting them, especially. But every time I look at my baby son I feel the happiest I have ever been.

“I did steal another woman’s man and women might hate me. But sometimes doing the wrong thing can lead to something totally right.

“Thankfully, Ben is now rebuilding his relationship with his kids. They love Tyler and come and stay with us.”

Kelly, from Havant, Hampshire, had been married twice before.

Tracy (right) now, with friends.

She was diagnosed with polycystic ovary syndrome during her first marriage and doctors told her she would need fertility treatment to conceive. However, before she could try it the relationship broke down. A second marriage followed three years later but ended when her husband said he wasn’t ready to have kids.

Then in June 2011 she met 38-year-old Ben, who was going through problems with his own partner, Tracy, 40. He and Kelly would confide in each other during breaks at work.

“They were rowing a lot. It was nice to share our worries,” says Kelly.

She insists she didn’t fall for Ben, who has a daughter and son aged 15 and six, but both seeking comfort, they slept together. Then again, twice more. Thinking there was no way she could get pregnant, she didn’t use contraception.

“I knew it was a rebound. I knew it had no future. It was too soon after my marriage had broken up. And I knew it was wrong. But no one was ever meant to know. We let it fizzle out quickly and I even told him to try and make a go of things with Tracy.”

But a month later the bombshell dropped. Kelly’s period was late and, disbelieving, she did a pregnancy test.

She says: “I sat on the toilet and couldn’t believe what I was seeing. My heart sank and I felt sick.

“Over the next few days I did eight tests. I even made my mum watch me.” Finally, Kelly accepted the truth when doctors confirmed it.

“It was incredible. Termination crossed my mind fleetingly,” she says. “But this was my baby, and no one was going to take my chance from me. I’d always wanted to be a mum since I was 13.

“When I was told it might be ­impossible it was devastating. When my friends started having children it hit hard. This was my one chance and I had to put myself first.”

And she knew she couldn’t leave Ben in the dark.

“I couldn’t deny Ben his right to know. If anything, that was the hardest decision.

“There was silence at the end of the phone when I told him. I assured him I never would have tricked him. But I was clear I was keeping the baby. This was my miracle. However if he wanted to walk away I didn’t mind. I told him that he wouldn’t have to have anything to do with the baby if he didn’t want to. I wouldn’t put his name on the birth certificate or chase him for money.”

Kelly was braced for the phone to slam down or to be shouted at and blamed. But Ben took her by surprise.

Kelly Hicks and Ben when they first met.

She says: “He went quiet but he told me we would work it out. He said he wanted to be part of the baby’s life. I was just stunned. What about the life he had now? I told him he had to tell his partner because she had a right to know too.

“Until he’d figured that out I wouldn’t tell anyone he was the dad.”

But Ben took his time to come clean and Kelly was unhappy about it.

“He came with me to the scans and doctor’s appointments but he put off telling Tracy. More than anything he was scared of losing the kids,” she says. “I told him he must.”

All the time Kelly insists she was preparing to be a single mum. But she wasn’t prepared for her feelings. Slowly, over time, she started to fall for Ben. She says: “It was hard to admit I really was falling in love with him. This was the man who’d given me the one thing that I thought I would never have.

“And he was being so good – but I knew he wasn’t mine.”

She adds: “My friends and family never once lectured me. They knew I knew I’d done wrong and I’d made a mistake by having the affair. They all agreed I needed to tell Ben and everyone understood why I needed to keep the baby.”

In the end Ben left it too late to make a confession. When Kelly was seven months pregnant Tracy found an old Twitter account containing messages between him and Kelly which revealed not only their affair, but the pregnancy.

Outraged, she messaged Kelly.

“It was the worst way for her to find out,” says Kelly. “I felt sorry for her and apologised. I deserved her anger. I rang Ben and told him she knew everything. I really never meant for any of this.”

Tracy threw Ben out and eight weeks later, in June 2012, Tyler was born. Kelly’s mum was with her, but she didn’t have time to tell Ben.

“I had an emergency C-section. It was all so quick so I couldn’t get Ben there. Suddenly I had a baby on my body, latched on to me. It was hard to imagine he was mine but I loved him from the moment I saw him.

“Ben came to see me the next day. He was besotted too. When I could go home he’d come over regularly, he was great with our tiny son.”

It was witnessing that early bond between father and son that cemented Kelly’s feelings for Ben. “Seeing him be a dad to Tyler made me fall for him even more,” she says.

And it seems the baby had the same effect on Ben. Because, two months on, he told Kelly he loved her too.

Kelly and Ben's family.

“He said he had developed feelings for me, that he wanted me,” she says. “I was over the moon of course, but I feared it was just the baby.

“I worried that he wasn’t over Tracy. It felt too soon. As much as I wanted him, I thought we should take our time.”

So the couple decided to wait. And it was at Tyler’s christening last September that they finally decided those feelings were not going to go away.

“Afterwards we sat and chatted and that was when he told me again he wanted to be a family, make a go of it. That time I knew it felt right. Ben said he loved me and moved in. I was so happy.”

Sadly, Tracy was far from happy. She was fuming and now she says: “I’m still angry at both of them. I thought he was working hard but instead he’d had an affair and was leading a double life.

“He was going to scans with her and then coming home and telling me he loved me.

“If I hadn’t found out he was on Twitter it might still be going on now.”

Kelly and Ben are now planning a wedding in September. Kelly doesn’t see Tracy but the older children now come and stay with her and Ben.

“I can’t believe how my life has changed,” says Kelly. “I don’t like what we have built our happiness on – I don’t like how it started.

“But it has happened and it feels right. Ben and me are right together and I’m being the mum I always wanted to be.”